Big bunny news

Compared to the stars of Night of the Lepus, the giant bunnies of Minorca sound like big wimps. But maybe that is a good thing.

In the March Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, scientists working on the Spanish island of Minorca detail the discovery of Earth’s biggest known rabbit species, an oddly unbunny-like giant dubbed Nuralagus rex — “the Minorcan king of the hares.”

The 26-pound prehistoric species was about six times bigger than the common European rabbit, found on most continents, according to an analysis of several bones. Study leader Josep Quintana is no stranger to giant Minorcan rabbit fossils, though it took a while before he knew exactly how big a find he’d uncovered.

“When I found the first bone I was 19 years old, I was not aware what this bone represented. I thought it was a bone of the giant Minorcan turtle!” said Quintana, a paleontologist at the Institut Català de Palentologia in Barcelona.

The animal, which lived about three to five million years ago, had several “odd” features that have never before been seen in rabbits, living or extinct, according to the study.

For one, the giant rabbit’s “short and stiff” vertebral column meant it couldn’t bunny hop. And the relatively small sizes of sense-related areas of its skull suggested that the animal had small eyes and stubby ears — a far cry from modern rabbit ears.

“I think that N. rex would be a rather clumsy rabbit walking,” Quintana said. “Imagine a beaver out of water.”